US MCC engages Malawian journalists

MCC officials organised various meetings with the country's media practitioners, which were held in Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu.

“My objective today is not to tell you what the MCC is, but to impress upon you how important its work is to Malawi and how important you as journalists are to sharing that message across the country,” said John Warner, public affairs officer, Malawi American Embassy, a the Mzuzu meeting.

As a foreign assistance body for the US government, the MCC, which is chaired by its secretary of state, manages two forms of grant assistance with original commitments totalling US$7.5 billion Compact programmes taking US$7 billion while threshold programmes US$470 million.

“Once the Compact is finalised, we believe the United States will invest around 300 million dollars in Malawi primarily in the power sector,” said Warner “This will be a serious investment to rebuilding important parts of Malawi's power generation, transmission and distribution system.”

“It is sad that sometimes such meetings are just for window-dressing but, on the ground, officials tend to be disobliging and very scanty with information,” said Diana Liabuba who works for Blantyre Newspapers.